Personal Budgets and Direct Payments

Personal Budgets and Direct Payments

If your child has an EHC plan, you have the right to request a personal budget. A personal budget is an amount of money identified by the LA to deliver some or all of the provision set out in an EHC plan, where the parent or young person is involved in securing that provision. Its purpose is to give families more control over the services and support they receive.

A personal budget can be provided as a notional budget held by the LA or school/college, as a direct payment (cash payment paid directly to the individual or parent carer), or a combination of the two. Sometimes you can ask for someone else e.g. a direct payment support service to manage the personal budget, this is called a third party arrangement.

Personal budgets and direct payments are optional for families. However, the LA must prepare a personal budget if asked to do so when a draft EHC plan is being prepared (both for statement-to-EHCP conversions and new entrants), or at the annual review of an existing plan.

“Local authorities must provide information on Personal Budgets as part of the Local Offer. This should include a policy on Personal Budgets that sets out a description of the services across education, health and social care that currently lend themselves to the use of Personal Budgets, how that funding will be made available, and clear and simple statements of eligibility criteria and the decision-making processes.”

Direct payments for health, education and social care provision are governed by different pieces of legislation, and can be refused for different reasons but they must tell you why.

Please click below to read more about personal budgets and direct payments: